University of the West Indies Open Campus in Belize

The University of the West Indies Open Campus in Belize is one of forty-five in sixteen countries and it’s the third stop in a series of regional country conferences. With twelve of the smaller campuses taking turns to host the events, this is only the second to be held locally in the past seven years. It started today and the general public is welcomed to attend and join the discussions promoting public education and the scholarly exchange of information. A local planning committee has put together a loaded agenda for the two day conference, which will have three international speakers joining local professionals to present research papers. News Five spoke to the head of the Belize campus and the regional director of open campuses this morning.

Jane Bennett, Head, UWI Open Campus Belize

jane bennett

“The purpose is to share information on relevant topics to the community of Belize, to get expert presenters on board and to share technical information and to illicit participation from the Belizean community on topics they are passionate about or they want more information about.”

Delahnie Bain

“What are some of those topics?”

Jane Bennett

“Well, first of all the theme for this conference is “Building our Nation’s Sustainability through Education, Culture and Technology. So the topics of the papers are based on those.”

luz longsworth

Luz Longsworth, Regional Director, Open Campus Country Sites

“This actually is a series of countries that we do in all our countries and this is the second round of the country conference series. The series started in the late 1990’s and Belize’s first conference was held in 2003. So what this is, is to study ourselves. For each country to step back, to reflect, to look at the issues of concern that really would lead to the development of each particular country and to really have a forum for public discourse on issues of concern to that country. Clearly as universities and educational institutions, the theme of education for development and the role that education plays for development is always a key theme. Also because the Caribbean is so rich in culture and Belize is particularly rich in culture and I’m pleased that this week we’re doing the conference in a week when we celebrate one of our culture groups, Garifuna Settlement Day later this week. So I think culture and education tend to always be a part of the themes.”

The papers presented can be viewed online at www.open.uwi.edu.  Longsworth says they have been to the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat and their next stop is Anguilla in April 2011.